


Matchstick

by stapling_pages



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Female Character, Vignette, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stapling_pages/pseuds/stapling_pages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petunia Anne Dursley was not a natural-born mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matchstick

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Mother's Day last year...

Petunia Anne Dursley was not a natural-born mother; she probably never would be. Growing up, all she wanted was the perfect husband, the perfect house, and maybe the perfect career if she got board. A child was not part of the plan.

When she had discovered she was pregnant, Petunia did not rejoice. She panicked. She wept and cried and threw herself into her mother’s arms, begging for help. Mrs. Evans only sighed before brewing her daughter a strong cup of tea.

She signed up for classes on childcare, went to seminars on motherhood, and spent hours grilling her mother and aunts for advice. Petunia studied and rehearsed and paid close attention. On the day of her beloved son’s birth, Petunia Dursley was more than ready.

“Petunia is a wonderful mother,” her neighbors would say as they watched her calm one of Dudley’s many tantrums. She knew the best way to quiet a child’s cry. She never became angry or upset. Petunia was the envy of all her lady friends: she had a beautiful home, a healthy son, and a loving husband. All was well; all was perfect.

Then came Halloween of 1981 and the end of her happy days.

Her sister was gone, dead. Dead and gone. All that was left of Lily was a baby with too-green eyes and a horrible scar, abandoned on the Dursleys’ doorstep on the eve of winter. Those wretched people, who had ripped her precious little sister away, had left her nephew – _her sister’s child!_ – on a doorstep with nothing but a thin blanket and a letter. Petunia read the letter. She took in the lost baby and vowed she wouldn’t let him reached the same end as Lily. But then – but then…

Despite her best efforts, Petunia was not a perfect woman. She loved her sister; in her heart of hearts, she loved her nephew, but she _hated_ magic. And there was no denying that little Harry Potter had magic. Toys floated to him from across the room; a bottle of warm milk appeared when he was hungry; tiny fey lights danced over his crib at night; scrapes healed quicker than they should. Harry Potter was a wizard, just like his mother. A wizard…Petunia despised wizards, and she wasn’t the only one.

When suspicious bruises appeared on her nephew, Petunia ignored them. She told herself she was imagining them. When they kept coming back, she rationalized that they were just accidents. When magic became involved, Petunia decided that he deserved them. The little freak had done _something_ and needed to be taught a lesson. He needed to learn that magic wouldn’t save him.

She didn’t protest when Vernon moved the boy into the stairwell cupboard. She didn’t sneak the freak food when he served dangerously long punishments. She didn’t offer him comfort when he woke up in the middle of the night, sobbing for a woman he didn’t remember. She turned away and pretended that she couldn’t feel the weight of her sister’s eyes watching her from the boy’s face.

Petunia Anne Dursley would never be the person her nephew needed her to be.


End file.
